Download Reading: “Limiting Factors”, pages 22

Reading: “Limiting Factors”, pages 22-24
HEADING:
1.
Name and describe the two main types of biotic limits on populations.
2.
It is possible for starvation to limit the reproductive potential of a species without killing any organisms. Explain why this is.
3.
Give 2 specific examples of species’ reproductive environments.
4. Give 2 strategies for coping with difficult seasonal changes to an ecosystem, and for each, give a specific example of how a species does it.
Strategy
Specific Example
5.
What could happen to an ecosystem if a given population exceeds its carrying capacity?
6.
Give an example of something that might cause an ecosystem’s carrying capacity for a specific population to decrease. Explain how/why it
would reduce the carrying capacity.
7.
Why is it important to predators that they never eat all the prey that is available?
8.
The size of an ecosystem’s overall carrying capacity most depends upon which organisms in its food web? Why them?
9.
What is the only abiotic limiting factor for algae in Mono Lake? ______________________________ Why isn’t sunlight considered a limiting factor
for the algae? (Surely if they had no light they would die, so why does the book say that sunlight isn’t a limiting factor for them?)
10. Why is the carrying capacity of a small ecosystem like Mono Lake larger than the carrying capacity of the Great Plains? Explain.